


what will follow

by achillese



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Family Drama, Family Issues, Friends to Lovers, Haunted Houses, M/M, Multimedia, Psychological Horror, Romance, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:23:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29853204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achillese/pseuds/achillese
Summary: Seventeen years ago, Adam Milligan, his father John Winchester, and his half brothers Sam and Dean moved to White Willow Manor, a sprawling estate in the New York woods. Only three weeks after they moved in, they fled in the dead of night, supposedly chased out of the home by hostile spirits. John later wrote about the experience in a wildly popular nonfiction book calledNo Place Like Home, which was hailed as the newAmityville Horrorby fans and critics alike.Now, Adam has inherited the home after John’s death, and he’s returning with Sam and Dean to see it for the first time since that fateful night. He didn’t count on the antagonistic local townsfolk, or the hot caretaker Michael who lives on the property, or the fact that something strange isdefinitelystill happening inside the house. Things go missing. Doors open on their own. Music plays in the middle of the night. Still, Adam knows there’s a logical explanation for everything.After all, there’s no such thing as ghosts.
Relationships: Michael/Adam Milligan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	what will follow

**Author's Note:**

> So [slaps fic] this bad boy's plot actually comes from the book _Home Before Dark_ by Riley Sager (hi, Mr. Sager. Big fan. Please don’t be mad). Also, very obviously, the story of Amityville was a big influence. We’re going full haunted house with this one. 
> 
> Or _is_ it even haunted? That's up to you to figure out. This'll be a fun one. 
> 
> Here's the requisite [Padlet](https://padlet.com/achillese/whatwillfollow) for visuals. Spotify playlist to come soon!

**[excerpt: John Winchester, _No Place Like Home._ HarperCollins, 1998.]**

_“There’s a monster in my closet.”_

_It didn’t phase me at the time. At five years old, Adam’s imagination was already well on its way to running wild. He saw dinosaurs in the clouds and unicorns out in open fields running with the horses. Besides, I’d already been through this song-and-dance routine with his two older brothers when they were his age. I could hunt these imaginary closet monsters blindfolded if I had to; it was nothing._

_Still, there was something about the way he said it – with so much more surety than any five-year-old should possess – that made even me second guess myself._

_I sat on the bed next to Adam. He was sitting up against the headboard, clutching his stuffed lion tight to his chest so hard his little knuckles were white._

_“There’s no such thing as monsters,” I said, like my dad used to say to me, and every dad throughout time. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll check it out for you, okay bud?”_

_Adam’s eyes grew wide in the dark and he shook his head. “No, don’t open it! He’ll come out!”_

He?

 _Not ‘it’, but ‘he.’ I paused, thinking it was strange, but then shrugged it off as another part of Adam’s active imagination. I got off the bed and walked to Adam’s closet, which wasn’t actually a closet: it was a giant wardrobe. Like the one from_ Beauty and the Beast _, but less gaudy and less French._

_I made a big show of reaching for the handle of one of the doors and slowly pulling it open. Adam hid his face in his lion and squealed, bracing for the worst, but nothing happened, because of course the wardrobe was empty. I pushed aside his tiny shirts and jackets and peered into the darkness that swallowed up the back of the wardrobe._

_Nothing. Zilch._

_“See, bud? No monsters in here.” I waved my hand around inside the wardrobe to show him nothing would grab me._

_Adam peered over the tuft of his stuffed lion’s mane. He was still tense; my big show of the empty wardrobe didn’t calm him in the slightest._

_I sat down on his bed again and ruffled his hair. “You just had a nightmare, yeah? Those can be scary, but what you have to remember is that whatever you see in the nightmare isn’t real. It can’t hurt you.”_

_“But I wasn’t asleep!” Adam insisted. His grip on the lion tightened. “I was awake, and I saw him in the closet, and he said—”_

_Adam, clearly still upset, stuck his thumb in his mouth to pacify himself. I gently pulled his hand away; I wanted to hear what else he had to say._

_“And? What did he say, bud?” I pressed._

_Adam swallowed hard, like he had to prepare himself. “He said his name was Mr. Shadow.”_

_Chills raced up my spine. No matter how active of an imagination my youngest son had, the idea of him coming up with the name ‘Mr. Shadow’ on his own was hard to believe. But then the alternative meant that—_

_No. There was no such thing as monsters. Mr. Shadow wasn’t real._

_I gave Adam my best, most reassuring smile. “And? Did Mr. Shadow say anything else?”_

_Adam looked up at me, his little blue eyes wide. “He said we’re all gonna die in here.”_

\---

**Book Review: John Winchester’s** **_No Place Like Home_ ** **  
**By Martin Pellenkoft

John Winchester’s bestselling book _No Place Like Home_ flew off the shelves this summer – and by all accounts, it’s still flying. Ask anybody with a basic grasp of the English language and they’ll tell you they’ve either read the sordid tale or they know someone who has. Either way, seemingly everyone’s talking about it.

 _No Place Like Home_ tells the “true” story of when Winchester and his sons – Dean, Sam, and Adam – were chased out of their Upstate New York home in the middle of the night just three short weeks after they moved in. No, it wasn’t leaky pipes or rats in the walls that scared them away. It was, supposedly, ghosts.

Now, before we get into the debate that I know you’re all waiting for, let me just say that I’m here reviewing the book as a book, first and foremost. And as a book, it’s mediocre at best. It’s Winchester’s debut, so perhaps he can be forgiven for some of the pacing issues, but so much of what’s supposed to be a tense thriller comes off as hackneyed and melodramatic. Count how many times he describes his youngest son’s “wide blue eyes” and you’ll see what I mean.

But I digress.

Cliches aside, it’s a fine debut – fine enough to cement it as “the new _Amityville Horror,_ ” thanks to a review from our friends over at Kirkus. And even I have to admit, I do see the comparison: pulpy, addicting, and hard to put down. Plus there’s the whole haunted house, fleeing-in-the-dead-of-night thing. As such, people were going to make this baseline comparison whether you agree with it or not.

One of the big drawbacks of _Home,_ though, is that it lacks the same gravitas that _Amityville_ brings simply because Winchester is a single father. In _Amityville,_ we get to witness George and Kathy Lutz tackling the strangeness of their home together. Having two adults in the room helps ground the story in reality and gives it real stakes. Winchester, in his book, has to accomplish the same thing and yet somehow do it alone. The closest he gets to a companion to talk to about his concerns is his eldest son, who was 16 at the time. Not exactly the ideal person you want to be having a serious conversation with, especially when the mildly strange quirks of the house turn terrifying real quick.

But of course, we can’t avoid discussing the biggest question to come out of this book’s release: did any of this really happen? _Home_ is being marketed as fiction, but the full title of the book that almost no one types in full (including yours truly, I’ll admit) is _No Place Like Home: A True Story._

So is it? Can we define it as a “true story” simply because the cover is telling us so? Or can we deduce for ourselves whether or not we take this tale as the truth? It’s not hard to believe some of the early events: things like repetitive tapping on the ceilings and walls and scraping sounds are par for the course in old houses, and could be explained away through rational thought or supposed specter. 

But as the story progresses, the “haunting” ramps up more and more, until it becomes truly unbelievable in the realest definition of the word. For example, the climax – which I won’t spoil, on the off-chance you’re one of the three people who hasn’t read the book yet – is quite possibly the silliest and most over-the-top proof of a “haunting” I’ve ever read. And yet, it was still compelling. I still cared about these characters – real people, yes, but characters for the sake of the book. 

So perhaps it doesn’t matter in the end if it really happened or not. What matters is whether or not you care about what befalls to the Winchester family. And by the end of this book, you’ll wind up caring very much indeed.

\---

**cryptid-hallow:**

> Okay, before we get into the ethics of whether or not sneaking onto private property is acceptable if it’s a landmark/famous location, consider this: I don’t give a shit.
> 
> So anyway, my friends and I prepped for this ahead of time. We weren’t just going in without a plan. We had flashlights, gloves, boots, the whole nine yards. The house itself isn’t hard to find since there’s that one long driveway leading up to it (which btw was SO ICONIC to see) plus the entrance gates (ALSO ICONIC). But that fucking brick wall around the property was a bitch to get around. We finally just scaled the front gate, but it took a lot of time since there were no real footholds to use for leverage. If anyone’s found a better way, more power to you, but we were dumb.
> 
> It’s fucking WILD seeing the house in person, all Gothic and shit (IS it actually Gothic architecture? I dunno, I’m not an architect). The walk through the woods leading up to the break in the tree line was just like it is in the book, and then bam, you see the house and the carriage house on the side. You could almost picture the scene from the book’s climax where John’s running out of the house carrying Adam. It actually felt like they were with us that afternoon. I know that sounds cheesy as shit, but it’s the truth.
> 
> We didn’t go inside (I drew the line at breaking and entering an actual home) but we did get one semi-cool photo for the road while the sun was setting. Enjoy!

\---

**amitee94:**

> Right, so, I kind of feel like a fucking idiot right now. But I’m also living for it. 
> 
> Everyone in the urbex and urbex-adjacent community has tried seeing White Willow Manor up close, and I know this because y’all literally won’t stop posting about it. Even if you’re not successful, y’all will just!! Post like a thousand photos of the fucking brick wall or the driveway or some shit. So, point being, I wanted to finally get up close and personal with the house.
> 
> I took a page from @cryptid-hallow’s book (no pun intended, har har) and scaled the front gate (you’re right, cryptid – a pain in the ass!) I was with one friend who’s not really – shall we say – the bravest of folk, so he was being a real pussy about sneaking onto the property, but I told him tons of people have done it before us and it’s always been fine.
> 
> WELL. Egg on my face, because we barely got close enough to see the actual house itself when we got chased off the property – by THEE hottest man I’ve ever seen. Like, I fully contemplated just letting myself get caught, because HELLO, broad shoulders. HELLO romance hero dark hair. PLEASE take me.
> 
> Ahem.
> 
> ANYWAY, I was wondering if anyone else countered Muscular Hot Guy for themselves?? Is he security? Why would an abandoned property have security? He looked too clean to be a squatter, IMO. 
> 
> More importantly: Hot Guy, if you’re out there stalking the Tumblr tags for NPLH/WWM content like this, DM a bitch. 

**paranatural replied:**

> I haven’t been to WWM myself but a friend of a friend has, and they said there was a guy patrolling the property on foot when they went. They weren’t caught, they booked it pretty much as soon as they saw there was someone there. They also said he had a shotgun strapped across his back, which??? I mean I guess if he’s dealing with stupid kids trying to sneak onto the property all the time, a shotgun makes sense to scare them off. 

**amitee94 replied:**

> Okay, 2 things:
> 
> One: definitely sounds like he’s some kind of security if he’s doing patrols and shit.
> 
> Two: oh god, that mental visual with a shotgun. *drools*

\---

** OBITUARY: John Winchester **

John Eric Winchester, of Lawrence, Kansas, passed away peacefully in his home on September 20, age 67. A Vietnam War veteran, John returned to the States and made a living first as a dedicated mechanic, then later found success as a popular writer. His one and only book, _No Place Like Home,_ has sold millions of copies and been translated into over a dozen languages.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Mary, and is now survived by his three sons: Sam, Dean, and Adam. 

A funeral service is scheduled for 11 am on September 23 at the church on the corner of State Street and Broadway. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Wounded Warrior Project in his honor.

\---

**winchestered:**

> I’m SO SICK of getting my hopes up with this fucking _No Place Like Home_ movie!! Universal has had the fucking rights to the book for YEARS and they’re just…...letting it rot in a vault somewhere?? They've LITERALLY delayed it to the point where now Winchester has passed away and won't get to see his story on the big screen. I don’t get this! They tease us every year with some bullshit news like “there might finally be a director attached to this project” but it never pans out. Last year the rumor was that James Wan would be directing (which would’ve been SO COOL), so I wonder who the wishlist director will be this year. Personally my dream would be for Tim Burton to make it like an Edward Scissorhands-style drama/tragedy. The house would look cool as hell and the aesthetics would be on point.
> 
> Any of you have your ideal director pick for an NPLH movie?

**brightlynot replied:**

> Oof, IDK about Burton. Like, on the one hand I get it, but IDK. I think focusing too much on vibes and aesthetics takes away from the fact that this IS a very real, very traumatic that happened to the family. 
> 
> Like, can you imagine being 16 or even 12 years old and fleeing your fucking house in the middle of the night because some crazy ghost is trying to kill you? That’s gotta fuck you up for life. Even if you don’t believe in that stuff, you still had to leave your home, and you were so traumatized by the experience that you never went back. So, yeah, IDK, I guess I have my doubts about Burton being able to handle all that emotional baggage with finesse. Feels like he’s having too much fun doing wacky stuff lately, which is fine, but I wouldn’t want him to bring that to an NPLH movie. 

**40x56 replied:**

> Guillermo del Toro. That’s the only correct answer. Have you guys SEEN _Crimson Peak?_

**winchestered replied:**

> I haven’t! But I heard the marketing was a little confusing. It’s supposed to be a scary ghost story but then it ended up NOT being that, right?

**40x56 replied:**

> Hah, kind of, yeah. As they say in the movie: the ghost is just a metaphor. It's really a love story.

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to do a fun little intro like this to kick things off.
> 
> Welcome to White Willow Manor! Please don't poke the ghosts that may or may not be watching you.


End file.
